Senoria's First Command
by glainfach
Summary: Senoria and her green dragon Pilloth were a good reliable team that everyone could count on in a pinch, but she lacked the confidence to become a leader. Until one day she had to face a decision that no rider ever wants to make.


**Senoria's First Command**  
by Juliet Carnell  
based on the Dragonriders of Pern(R) by Anne McCaffrey

The predawn colors were just beginning to push back the black curtain of night when the gray form of a small dragon and rider ascended out of the crater. The watchrider paid them little attention at first, but when they failed to join the Weyrleader's group on the north rim he followed them with a wary eye. When they landed on the rim to the southwest, in the area where the green wings would assemble just after dawn, he relaxed and went back to his own thoughts. He was happy that the drizzle had finally stopped and was looking forward to morning with the promise of clearing skies and a warm sunny day.

Weyrleader J'mal, sitting astride his bronze dragon Horath, also noticed the shadowy dragon and rider. Stopping in mid-sentence, he turned to one of his wingleaders, "Is that one of yours T'stan?" he asked, pointing at the lone figure on the far rim. "Out a bit early aren't they?"

T'stan patted the neck of his brown dragon Bermoth and waited for telepathic confirmation of what he already suspected. "Yes J'mal, that would be Senoria, rider of Pilloth in the third green wing. She has a habit of showing up early for morning assemblies."

"Good habits are hard to come by, have you considered her for wingsecond?"

T'stan started to chuckle, but seeing a scowl cross his Weyrleader's face let it fade into a cough. "Not really. Senoria is very reliable, but she's never once taken a leadership role among the riders. Tell her to do something and rest assured it will get done, however I just don't feel she has it in her to command."

"Too bad, don't give up on her though. Push her a little and see what happens… Now, where were we…"

o o o 

_The Weyrleader is asking about you._

"Really? I hope he's not annoyed that we're up here so early." Senoria leaned forward just a bit too far and wrapped her arms around Pilloth's neck. As she watched the little group on the other side of the crater for signs of agitation she let her body go limp, hanging on with her arms only. "I just want to see the sunrise. Is T'stan upset with me?"

_They are no longer talking about us. No one is upset._

Pilloth stretched her neck up and back, letting her rider slip back into place. It was a game they played, Senoria would move into some awkward position and Pilloth would try to put her safely back in her seat. For her trouble, Pilloth received a good scratching behind the ears.

"Oh look," whispered Senoria, "the Red Star just dropped below the cloud cover." As rider and dragon gazed eastward the fiery-red bringer of thread dipped towards the horizon. It shown brightly for a moment and then its brilliance began to fade in the growing yellow-orange of daybreak. The undersides of the receding cloud cover turned crimson and pink as the crescent of Rukbat rose little by little into the sky.

Senoria sighed, "A sunrise like that comes along once in a lifetime."

o o o

Senoria had seen her share of sunrises. As the only girl in a family of eight children it had always been her job to arise several hours before dawn and help cook the morning meal for the small holding where she grew up. Every dawn she and her mother would light the fires, carry water from the cisterns, and make the porridge and klah to feed her brothers. Then they would sit quietly together and watch the sunrise. That was the way she would always remember her mother, bathed in the golden light from the rising sun.

When Senoria was only seven turns old, her mother became pregnant with a ninth child. A woman came from a neighboring hold to help with the chores when Senoria's mother became gravid and took to her bed. The woman had been surprised when Senoria had joined her in the kitchen on the first morning, but had come to rely heavily on the child as her mother began having problems.

She was awakened one night by her mother's screams, but having two younger brothers she knew what they meant. She got up and went to her mother's room, but her father wouldn't let her in. She had been allowed to watch the last time, but her father turned her away and told her to go back to bed. She had fallen asleep to the sound of her mother's labor pains.

She awoke the next morning to find the house silent, the neighbor gone and her mother's room locked. Senoria tried to light the fire in the hearth by herself, but couldn't get the spark from the flint to catch on the damp tinder that her brothers had left for her the night before. She was still trying to light the fire when her father walked into the kitchen just at sunrise. He stood over her for a long time, watching her efforts in silence before he said, "Why isn't the meal ready? Your brothers will be awake soon."

She stood to face him and began explaining her difficulty when he slapped her across the face with the back of his hand so hard that she was thrown into the black rock pile. "You're useless," he spat out at her, "Get that fire lit and be quick about it." Then he stalked out the door and into the beast hold. It was several hours before her eldest brother took her aside and told her that their mother and the baby had died.

From that day on her father never spoke to Senoria unless it was to tell her something to do or to scold her for something done wrong. Increasingly over the years he let the back of his hand do the talking. At first she looked to her brothers for refuge, but in time they came to treat her with the same coldness as her father.

Until one evening when her father overheard her telling her brothers that she dreamed of one day marrying a successful hold owner and moving away. "You belong to _my_ hold!" he roared at her, "And you will never leave here! I'll teach you a lesson about family loyalty…" He had beaten her so severely that her brothers had no choice but to gang up on him and pull him off before he beat her to death. After that he administered her "lessons" while her brothers were off doing their chores or in the privacy of the beast hold.

Then one day dragons appeared in the sky when there was no thread and her father told her to hide. She was holed up in the root cellar for hours when at last one of her brothers had come for her. He was angry and told her that it was all her fault that none of them would become dragonriders. When she got outside her father was arguing with the leather clad riders, he was telling them they were mistaken and that it was his boys they wanted. He told them that his hold would fail if they took her away.

Senoria had been frightened and had become panic-stricken when one of the dragonriders grabbed her by the arm and dragged her over beside one of the massive blue dragons. She didn't want to be near the terrifying thing, but as she came closer the huge animal lowered its head as if saluting her and nuzzled her gently with its snout. She had been surprised to find it soft and warm.

She watched in amazement as her father got down on his knees and begged the riders not to take his only daughter. His sons would starve he said, but the dragonrider only laughed at him and told him his sons should be married or just learn to cook for themselves. In the end the dragonriders just threw her onto the back of one of the dragons and flew off. Her last memory of the man that had tormented her ever since her mother's death was the sound of his weeping. She had never been sure if he was weeping for her or for himself.

Her first trip between had been a terrifying experience. When everything went black and all sensation stopped in the icy-cold void of between, she had believed herself dead. Then when they arrived at the weyr, she almost wished it were true. The dragonriders had turned her over to a gruff old man they called the weyrling master who led her to an empty dormitory room full of beds, ordered her to stay there for the night and then left. He never once mentioned that she could leave to find food or a place to relieve herself, so she curled up in one of the beds and cried herself to sleep.

Early the next morning, several hours before dawn, she awoke as usual. Hunger and a full bladder overcame her fear and she ventured out into the unfamiliar weyr. It was a place unlike anything she had ever imagined. Built inside an ancient volcanic crater, it was honeycombed with corridors and passageways. Eventually she found the privy and the way outside, looking up at the small circle of night sky visible above the crater walls made her feel trapped and alone.

She spotted the solitary watch dragon, sitting high up on the rim illuminated by the light of a moon she could not see. She assumed it was there to keep her from escaping. As she gazed up at it, the dragon turned its head in her direction and the most amazing thing happened. Senoria heard a deep melodic voice in her head say:

_What are you doing out so early?_

Somehow she knew it was the dragon up on the high wall that was talking to her and somehow she guessed that it would be able to hear her reply. "I'm looking for the kitchens, please."

_Turn around, walk thirty paces and it will be the big opening on your left._

"Thank you so much!" Only later did she learn how rare and special that encounter had been, for dragons virtually never spoke to anyone other than their own riders. She found the great eating hall and off to one side the kitchens. It was there she discovered someone else was awake, a young woman about her age was lighting the fires in the in the great hearths and ovens.

Senoria was soon helping the other girl. She marveled at the system that brought fresh water directly into the kitchen and considering the size of the pots they had to fill for porridge and klah she was very glad they didn't have to bring it from a cistern outside. Once the morning meal was on to cook, they sat down to talk and only then did Senoria's rumbling belly give away her hunger. The other girl fell all over herself to fix a quick meal and by the time they finished eating other women had started showing up to begin preparing the rest of the Weyr's daily meals.

Several hours later Senoria was still helping out, she had blended right in and no one had seen fit to ask where the new girl had come from. She was cutting some vegetables into a big stew pot when the weyrling master stormed into the room shouting out her name. He chewed her out right there in front of all the women and then chewed them out as well for keeping a dragonrider candidate from her morning of instruction.

Later that afternoon, when the other candidates were being dismissed to do their chores, the weyrling master ordered Senoria to remain and make up for the lessons she had missed that morning. When they were alone the master had taken up a pair of leather safety straps intending to lecture the girl on their proper use, but when he turned to her with the straps in his hands her eyes had grown wide. Then with a look of resignation the girl quietly turned her back to him and dropped to her knees.

Only later after he had dismissed her did the full significance of that posture dawn on the old weyrling master. In all his years of dealing with young people, he had never once struck one in anger or otherwise. What sort of life had this child come from where the mere sight of a man holding a leather strap would make her expect a beating and accept it so willingly?

He made a promise to himself to apologize and have a long talk with Senoria the next day, but he never got the chance. For that night the dragon eggs hatched.

Senoria was completely unprepared to meet Pilloth that night. No one had ever told her of the connection that would form between her and the dragon. No one explained that they would begin a lifelong bond that would become dearer to her than any family relationship. No one made clear that the dragon would be closer to her than any lover could ever hope to come. All she was told was to put on a white robe and walk out on to some very hot sand in a big cave and wait patiently for the dragons to appear.

She watched perplexed as one little dragon after another broke out of it's shell and went running up to another boy or girl only to stare into their eyes. They would then shout out odd names that all sounded alike before walking out of the cave feeding the dragon from one of the dozens of bowls of raw meat spread out all over the floor. She had just decided that she really didn't want a dragon following her around snapping meat out of her fingers when a small voice in her head said:

_Does that include me?_

Senoria whipped around looking for who had spoken, "W-What?" then her eyes fell on the smallish egg that lay quivering in the sand nearby. Reflexively she walked towards it as cracks formed across the surface. When the little dragon pushed its way out of the shell she was standing only an arm's reach away. The little green head swiveled to face her and she looked into its jeweled eyes.

"Hello," she said, "I'm Senoria."

_My name is Pilloth, won't you feed me?_

"Oh course, don't be silly." It happened like a passing breeze, one instant Pilloth was a strange animal hatching from an egg and the next she was an integral part of Senoria's consciousness. Unlike the chaos that had characterized all the other impressions that night, Senoria and Pilloth walked calmly and quietly out of the cavern. She fed the little dragon meat from one of the many bowls and then they waited patiently to be told what to do.

In the turns that followed they learned to fly and to flame thread. They became an accomplished and reliable team, a team that could be counted on to do what they were told when they were told to do it. And always they arose early each morning, greeting the watch dragon and rider before heading to the kitchens where Pilloth would stand guard while Senoria helped light the fires.

o o o

The wings were pretty well assembled now. Nearly the entire rim of the crater was alive with dragons. The Weyrleader's group of wingleaders and wingseconds were still gathered at the northern apex of the bowl. To the northeast where the remaining bronzes that made up the Weyrleader's wing and beyond them, all along the eastern rim, were the blue wings. On the western rim stood the brown wings and finally here to the south with the green wings sat Senoria and Pilloth. Down on the bowl floor Senoria could see the Weyr's four golden queens being outfitted for the fire line that would clean up any thread that might make it to ground and the throngs of young weyrling riders who would run firestone back and forth for all the wings.

A murmur arose from the dragons on the north rim. It rippled around the crater along both sides and got to Senoria at about the same time. She looked up and saw the wingleaders and seconds spreading out across the bowl to join their wings. She picked out T'stan and tracked his progress to the southern apex, but he didn't head for his normal position to her right. Instead he appeared to be heading straight towards her. As they approached, Bermoth began gaining altitude and Pilloth gave a snort.

_T'stan wants to talk with you, up on top._

"Oh no," thought Senoria, "he really was upset about this morning after all! We're in for it now my love."

_I don't think so._

Pilloth dropped forward off the cliff face just far enough to spread her wings and then spiraled up to meet the wingleader. When they leveled out, Senoria could see that T'stan had a smile on his face. "Maybe you're right Pilloth," she thought.

"Senoria, I want you and Pilloth to ride cover today," said T'stan. "You'll be pretty much on your own, use your initiative and call up any help you need. Think you can handle that?"

Senoria thought about it for a moment. As cover rider she would fly to the rear of the wing and watch for stray thread that might fall behind the main formation. Most of the time that meant she and Pilloth would be off on their own flaming rogue threads, but should the wing be drawn too far ahead of the fall she might have to call back riders to help out. It was even within the cover rider's prerogative to recall the whole wing if necessary.

T'stan was offering her a very significant opportunity. She gulped at the thought of ordering about reinforcements, but she knew that nine falls out of ten the wing never heard a peep from its cover rider. If she didn't agree to do this T'stan was bound to be displeased with her. "Yes, we can handle that," she said around the knot in her throat. "You can count on us wingleader."

"Good." replied T'stan. "Stay up here and grab the cover spot when the wing forms. Good luck." Then he flew down to assume his place and await the Wyerleader's command to take wing.

It felt odd to be the only rider in the air, but Senoria didn't have long to wait for the distant figure of the Weyrleader to raise his hand palm up in the command to rise. She had a wonderful view as all the wings arose in precise order. From up here what often seemed more akin to controlled chaos when you were taking part in it looked like the beautifully choreographed operation it really was.

She waited for her wing to form up and fill in the hole where she normally would have been. Then Pilloth took her place ten dragon lengths behind T'stan and Bermoth. Suddenly Senoria felt very alone and vulnerable. Looking right and left she saw other cover riders taking their places to the rear. "What have I gotten us into this time Pilloth?"

_We'll be all right. Isn't this is exciting?_

Above and ahead of them the Weyrleader's fist shot into the air, the image of their destination was passed from Horath to the wingleader dragons and on down in turn to every dragon on the line. J'mal's arm came down in the traditional command to go between and, as one, the entire Wing vanished.

Eight icy cold breaths later they reappeared under the crimson and pink clouds of sunrise they had watched earlier that morning. The Wing had chased the sun west across the northern continent in search of their nemesis. Senoria frowned at the clouds. The overcast would give the riders less time to track the thread as it fell, making the fight harder and more dangerous. Senoria hoped the clouds would clear away soon, if they didn't it promised to be a very long fall indeed.

o o o

The cloud cover had indeed taken nearly the entire time to break, but now the sun was shining and the thread was beginning to thin out. Senoria figured the fall would be over soon and she was thankful for that. So far she had not witnessed a single serious injury and with luck the whole Wing would return to the Weyr healthy and in good spirits.

Her worries about acting as cover rider had not panned out. The wing had been in good form all day and although the overcast had caused them to miss numerous threads, it was nothing she and Pilloth couldn't handle easily on their own.

Pilloth had just flamed another stray and was banking into a climb to regain some altitude when she suddenly jerked her head around. Then Senoria heard shouting from somewhere above them.

"What is it?"

_Clumps!_

"Oh no!"

No rider liked to see thread falling in clumps. Clumps were unpredictable. Dragons had difficulty gauging the amount of flame to use. Riders were more apt to misjudge their jumps. Sanoria looked up and saw the first ones beginning to fall and by the egg they were huge!

"Okay, let's get up there fast and form up with the wing."

_Firestone?_

Sanoria reached into the sacks hanging behind her and fished out a couple of good-sized chunks. Holding them out for Pilloth to take she began to plot their next few moves.

They were circling up into position when T'stan signaled the wing to break left toward several large clumps. What he couldn't see that Senoria did from her vantage point was another clump above them all that was falling in the opposite direction. "Tell Bermoth we'll cover this one," thought Senoria. Then with the practiced skill of a well-drilled team, they broke to the right as Pilloth informed the wingleader that they were going after the rogue.

They were still too low to try following the clump down which would have been the normal procedure, so Senoria had Pilloth continue her climb to try and intercept it from below instead. Senoria heard the vigorous rumblings from deep within her dragon's neck and sensed that Pilloth intended to release one massive blast at the clump.

"Save something to clean it up with. We'll, dive on the remains after we pass by it."

Pilloth beat her wings furiously. Greens are the weakest of the dragons and gaining height quickly was always an effort. Senoria decided to trade some of their altitude for a little more speed; at this rate the clump was going to pass by them just out of range.

"Top out… now!"

At the command Pilloth leveled out and with her next wing beat thrust forward so hard that Senoria's safety straps snapped taut. "Perfect." she thought. The clump now converged on precisely the same point as she and her dragon.

"You are the best my love!"

Pilloth's mouth gaped open and fire roared into the air before them. Senoria felt the heat of the blast on her face and hoped that Pilloth had indeed saved something for their next attack. The following maneuver was already fully formed in Senoria's mind when the tongue of flame struck the bottom of the clump and quickly engulfed it. Pilloth performed a tight wingover to the left intended to turn them upside down and bring them diving after the burning thread ball.

Just as the green dragon's breast was turned toward and fully exposed to the burning clump, it exploded. Strands of living thread from the core shot out in all directions. One caught Pilloth squarely in the chest and seared a hole deep into her body. The dragon screamed in agony and shock. Instead of completing the loop she collapsed into a stall and plummeted towards the ground. Senoria had been shielded from the explosion and didn't know what was happening, but she did know that her dragon was hurt and that they were in trouble. She formed a jump in her mind and then screamed at Pilloth until she responded through her pain.

"Jump now! Jump now!"

The icy cold of between snapped them both out of panic. The blackness and disorientation that was usually so alarming was a treasured reprieve this time. They emerged into the daylight just to the rear of the fall line, upright and flying level. Even in her distress Pilloth had executed the jump just as Senoria had imagined it, but the pain that seared into Senoria's mind from Pilloth quickly overshadowed the accomplishment.

Unable to coordinate her movements, Pilloth staggered in the air and began to fall again. Senoria now realized that her dragon was very seriously injured and reflex brought the image of the Weyr into her mind. The sooner they made the jump home the sooner her love's pain could be relieved, but why was she in such agony? The trip through between should have staunched whatever wounds she had, but the feeling Senoria was getting was as if the dragon was being eaten alive. Straining against her safety straps, she leaned as far as she could to the right and saw the gaping hole in the green flesh of Pilloth's chest. In an instant Senoria knew what had gone wrong, the heat of Pilloth's body had protected the thread from the cold of between and even now it was still deep inside trying to devour her.

Just as quickly Senoria knew what she must do. Righting herself she unbuckled the safety strap from the left side of her harness. She struggled to gain control of the delirious dragon's mind and at the exact moment Pilloth accepted the command to jump back to the Weyr she swung herself down and plunged her arm into the gash.

As blackness enveloped them, her hand groped deep inside the wound. As soon as her fingers touched the repulsive writhing mass within she clenched her fist around it. Sensing the presence of something less resistant than dragon flesh the thread turned on the hand that had seized it. Senoria jerked her arm free and held it out as far as she could into the cold inky blackness. Then she tried not to scream as the pain of the thread's attack enveloped her mind.

They burst into the air above the Weyr and immediately stalled. Dropping quickly towards the bowl floor, Senoria lost her balance and fell out of her seat. The only thing holding her in place was a tenuous toehold on Pilloth's neck ridge and the single strap of leather that suddenly seemed much too thin and far too worn for the job. She grabbed at the strap with both hands, but only managed to catch it with her left. When her right hand touched the strap she was rewarded with a wave of pain so intense that she nearly blacked out.

With the ground rushing up at them and Pilloth too weak to fly, she was about to lose all hope when two immense golden bodies appear in the air below them. The sky grew dark as a great bronze body blocked out the sun above them. In a maneuver that was often practiced, but rarely used, the two queens closed the gap between them and with wings beating in unison formed a cradle that Pilloth fell into. The jolt of contact made Senoria lose her grip entirely and she found herself suspended by the safety strap between three long necks. A green one above and golden ones to either side, but below her there was nothing but lots of empty air.

With her feet now dangling free of any purchase, she visualized what was about to happen. The golden queens would quickly descend to the floor of the crater and at the last moment separate and let the injured dragon fall the few remaining spans to the ground. At that moment Senoria would be crushed beneath her own dragon! Furiously she tried to regain her grip on the safety strap and that is when she felt, rather than heard, the snap of the leather tearing away from the harness.

Moments turned into an eternity for her as the events unfolded. The strap did not break right away. She counted three distinct jerks as it tore away bit by bit. Each pause brought the ground only a heartbeat closer, but those few seconds saved her life. As the strap broke free she was only a dragon's height above the soft sand. She crashed into the floor and started rolling forward from her momentum. She had rolled away just enough so that when Pilloth slammed into the ground just her legs were caught beneath the crushing weight. Momentum carried them both onward and she rolled free as the dragon collapsed upon the sands. Her legs were shattered, but she and Pilloth were alive.

It would have been easy to just lie there and give in to her pain, but Pilloth's pain was deeper and more life threatening. Senoria pushed herself into a sitting position and then quickly looked around taking in her surroundings. The queens had veered off and were now climbing out of the Wyer in order to return to the fall. The Weyrleader's bronze Horath was settling down just outside the common room opening. Pilloth lay sprawled in the middle of the bowl and the only people in sight were a couple of young weyrlings.

She locked eyes with the nearest, a boy of ten or eleven turns, and shouted, "Numbweed! Hurry!" but the boy just stood there frozen in shock. "Now, scorch it! NOW!" She had never raised her voice that way to anyone, so she was startled and a bit pleased when the command shook the boy into action. More than that, every weyrling within sight was now in a dead run for the stores room.

She next turned her attention to Pilloth. The downed dragon was making noises like the cross between a wheeze and a whimper. Senoria had never heard a sound like it before and she knew it had to be bad. Ignoring the searing pain in her legs and hand, Senoria dug both arms into the sand and began dragging herself backwards towards her dragon. It took an agonizingly long time to reach Pilloth's side, but by the time she got there young hands were holding out buckets of numbweed for her.

She grabbed a bucket and thrust her right hand into it. When it came out again the only thing that registered on Senoria's mind was that it did not contain the handful of numbweed she wanted. Cursing she dropped the bucket in her lap and dug out a huge glob with her left hand. Thrusting it deep into the wound, her arm disappeared almost to the shoulder. Again and again she repeated the action as tears, for the first time, began to pour from her eyes. When the bucket was empty, blurry hands replaced it with a full one.

Finally the wound could hold no more. Every thrust displaced as much numbweed as Senoria was trying to pack in. Strong hands grasped her shoulders and tried to pull her away. She shrugged them off, but the interruption allowed her to shift her focus. Digging her arms once again into the sand she began to drag herself down the dragon's long neckline.

Her backside soon bumped into something big and Pilloth snorted weakly. Lifting the big green snout out of her way, Senoria made one last push and then rested her beloved dragon's head gently on her lap. She expected the weight to bring even more pain to her throbbing legs, but in fact it seemed to ease it some.

"Is that better my love?" Senoria crooned.

_Yes, much better… but I am so weak._

"That will pass. As you heal you will grow stronger."

_I don't have enough time left to heal._

Blinking away the tears from her eyes, Senoria saw clearly for the first time the dull gray color of Pilloth's bejeweled eyes. Sensing now the weakening of the lifelong mental bond between them she realized in one sickening instant what her dragon had just said.

"No, my heart. This is not the end!"

Turning frantically, she grabbed at the nearest weyrling. "Go get the Weyrleader. I must see him now!" While holding the child's tunic with her left hand, she raised her right arm and pointed it towards the bronze dragon over his shoulder. The boy's eyes grew wide at the sight of her outstretched arm and he stumbled away running.

Senoria thought she knew what needed to be done, but the Weyrleader should be the one to make that decision. She just couldn't make a decision like that on her own! Someone had to tell her what to do!

o o o

The Weyrleader staggered into the entrance of the common room disoriented and unsure of his next move. He knew the source of his confusion all too well. In order for the rescue to be successful, Horath and the two queens had timed it back to the Weyr. Now he had the eerie sensation of not only being here on the warm sands of the bowl, but also of being half a continent away in the cold high air barking orders to his wingseconds and calling the queens in from the fire line.

The whole thing was a fiasco. T'stan had no idea Senoria was chasing a large clump on her own and when he found out he had sent only two riders to back her up. By the time they got there the sky was full of thread that the queens had to clean up on the ground. Then word had come to him through Horath that Pilloth was wounded and in need of rescue.

By the egg it had worked though! The injured dragon was safely on the ground, not that Pilloth had helped out much. The green didn't look to be in such bad shape, but she hadn't even been trying to fly! "Silly dragon," he thought, "at least she's not out there screaming her head off." And the rider! What was going on in that girl's head? From his vantage point above them he had clearly seen her other safety strap flapping in the wind and it had not looked broken to him. She had been lucky to survive the fall. When she recovered he was going to have a very long talk with that young woman!

Anger, like bile, was beginning to rise in his throat when the child ran up to him.

"What is it lad? Out with it."

"Senoria says you must come right away!" the boy blurted out.

"She says I _must_, does she? Does she indeed!" and in a rage he was off. Only in passing did he notice the paleness of the young boy's face, it reminded him of this morning's clouds or the pallor of death. That thought added urgency to his step as he headed out into the bowl.

o o o

"Where is he? Why are we alone?"

Senoria was on the verge of tears again. Pilloth was fading fast and she needed to make a decision. All her life decisions had been made for her, by her father, by her brothers, by the search riders, the weyrling master, wingleaders and on and on. Now that she needed direction most they were nowhere in sight and here she sat, knowing what she must do and with no one to tell her to do it. Then at last she made up her mind.

"Pilloth? My love?"

_Yes?_

"We must make one more jump today before we are done."

_I am too weak. I cannot move my wings._

"That's not necessary dear heart. Just this once we will jump from the sand. If we take some with us so much the better, it's warm from the sun and we may need it."

_Okay, I'm ready._

"Brave girl. You are the most courageous dragon in all the world."

Smiling into the great jeweled eyes, Senoria raised her right arm and clinched what remained of her hand into a fist.

o o o

J'mal was running now. The sight that greeted him outside the common room had drained every bit of anger from him and replaced it with pure dread. Senoria sat at the center of the bowl with Pilloth's head cradled in her lap. A huge hole, dripping with ichor and numbweed, was clearly visible in the dragon's breast close to the heart. All activity around them had stopped and people were beginning to back away from the pair. He saw the girl's arm shoot into the air and winced at the sight of her ruined hand, little more than a stump remained. The significance of the gesture was slow in coming to him, it was only when she pulled it down in an all too familiar gesture that he realized it was too late to stop her.

Senoria's arm came down in the traditional command to go between and then dragon, rider and a sizable chunk of the bowl floor vanished, never to return. A sound caught in J'mal's throat, a sound that echoed the low keening of grief-stricken dragons that began to shake him from all around the crater.

"No…"

o o o

_S'ria? Are you there?_

"Yes, my love. I'm right here beside you, as I've always been and always will be."

_Good. I can't see. Did I jump well?_

"You made a splendid jump, right on target. How are you feeling?"

_I'm not feeling much at all._

Senoria, realized that she too couldn't feel much anymore. The icy cold had seeped into every part of her body. Only her eyes still stung from frozen tears. She could still feel Pilloth with her mind though, but the link was becoming alarmingly weak. She needed to protect Pilloth until the very end, so she let go her hold on her own body and stretched out her consciousness as if to cloak her dragon with it.

"I can still feel you my dear heart. You can rest now."

Soon Senoria began to feel 'something' else besides her dragon, something at once peculiar and yet oddly familiar. The something did not frighten her, though it seemed to grow stronger even as she and Pilloth faded. Pretty soon she sensed another something out there, then another, soon they were surrounded by somethings… Then she and Pilloth began to move…

_Where are we going?_

"Home, my love. I think we're going home."

END

All characters in this story are a work of fiction. Any resemblance to any person, living or dead is purely coincidental.

This work is copyright (C) 2002 by Juliet Carnell, it is not public domain and all rights are reserved. This work is not for publication. This work may not be reproduced, distributed or sold in any format or media. This work may not be included in any collection without the express written permission of the author.

Dragonriders of Pern(R) is the registered trademark of Anne McCaffrey.

Story elements that have appeared in Dragonriders of Pern(R) are copyright (C) 1967-2000 by Anne McCaffrey and are used here without license.


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